This invention relates to apparatus for chilling glasses and more in particularly to a last in, last out method for chilling glasses.
In a busy bar, the number of beer glasses to be chilled during a shift can be considerable, especially during times of increased beer consumption. During heavy periods, the bartender is usually in constant motion and requires that the glasses, the liquor and the beer all be readily accessible so that he can quickly serve his customers.
Oftentimes, the bartender will run out of glasses and will have to reach into the glass washing machine and pull out glasses that are not chilled. In point of fact, if the washing has been recent, the glasses are relatively warm. If he attempts to cool these glasses by putting them into a top-loading chill chest or refrigerator, it takes a good 20 to 30 minutes for the glasses to reach the proper serving temperature. Most chill cabinets or refrigerators basically serve as batch-processing units in which the glasses are top-loaded into the chill cabinet one batch at a time usually on trays stacked one on top of the other. Thus there are various layers of glasses which are to be chilled.
If during a busy shift the bartender sees that he is going to need more glasses than are contained in the chill cabinet, his tendency is to grab glasses out of the glass washer and put them on top of the glasses that are already in the chill cabinet. The result is that the glasses which come out of the hot dishwasher are insufficiently chilled because the glasses which are last put into the chill cabinet are the first to be withdrawn. This is a last in, first out system and is prevalent in most bars. The trouble with such a system is that the glasses are not properly chilled which is an annoyance to the customers.
Moreover, as is usual, the chill cabinets are beneath the bar such that as the chill cabinet is emptied of glasses, the bartender must reach deep to the chill cabinet in order to pull out the glasses. On a busy evening, the amount of back strain this can cause is considerable, along with the inconvenience of not having the chilled glasses at a point reasonably close to the beer taps.
In short, in the past the chilling of glasses for beer or other spirits has been one involving batch cooling, without consideration of the requirements of the bartender.
Rather than utilizing a batch process for the chilling of the glasses, in the subject invention a chill cabinet is provided which has a number of trays mounted therein. The trays are driven by a conveyor from the bottom of the chill cabinet to the top of the chill cabinet, with the trays being loadable into the bottom of the chill cabinet and withdrawn from an aperture at the top of the chill cabinet. What is accomplished by such an arrangement is a last in, last out flow in which the glasses are chilled as the trays on which they sit move upwardly in the chill cabinet. This means that the residence time of a glass in the chill cabinet is maximized since it must travel from the bottom-loading slot to the top exit slot or orifice before it is extracted. The exit orifice of the chill cabinet is at the top such that the chilled glasses are available at about waist high for the bartender. The time for the chilling processes is the time that the glasses are resident in the chill cabinet starting from the time when they are inserted at the base of the chill cabinet until the time they move to the top position.
The result is that relatively warm or hot washed glasses may be placed on a tray and inserted into the chill cabinet at the bottom. Over a period, for instance, 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the glass withdrawal rate, the hot glasses are suitably chilled by the time they make it to the top position.
In one embodiment, the drive for the endless loop conveyor chain drive is controlled by a foot petal which is actuatable by the bartender to present another tray at the top of the chill cabinet after the previously presented and now empty tray has been removed. The appropriately chilled glasses are presented to the bartender at approximate waist level, where he can grab a glass, place it under the tap and serve the beer, all in an efficient manner minimizing time and motion.
The result is that in a busy bar, the bartender now has the ability to quickly serve beer in chilled glasses without having to move significantly from his position at the taps.
In order for the glasses to be accessible at the exit aperture of the chill cabinet, in one embodiment the trays carrying the glasses are tilted forwardly such that the glasses slide down by gravity towards the exit orifice. A stop or lip at the exit orifice edge of the tray prevents the glasses from coming out, other than by extraction by the bartender. In one embodiment, the glasses may be arranged in rows left to right, with each of the glasses in a row starting at the back of the cabinet and moving forwardly and downwardly to the exit aperture.
In order to assist in the gravity-induced movement of the glasses, the trays themselves may carry a rack of internal rollers so that the glasses, rather than sliding down a ramp, move towards the exit aperture by virtue of freely rotating rollers which support the glasses.
In a further embodiment, a braking mechanism is provided to lock the rollers such that the glasses cannot move towards the exit aperture, thus to prevent the crashing of the glasses into each other. When a glass is removed at the exit aperture, this removal is sensed electro-optically and the brake on the rollers is released for predetermined period of time to allow the glasses to move downwardly towards the exit aperture, at which point the rollers are again locked.
As a result, chilled glasses are made accessible to the bartender at a point reasonably close to the tap used to fill the glasses. They are appropriately chilled because they have had at least a minimum amount of time in the chill cabinet, with the time being associated with the length of time it takes for a tray of glasses at the bottom of the chill cabinet to be moved to the top most position. Since the hot, recently washed glasses are inserted at the base of the chill cabinet they will not be withdrawn immediately. Rather the glasses which are on the top most tray has had a relatively long resident time in the chill cabinet are first removed or extracted.
In so doing, the usual frenetic activity of the bartender is reduced due to this convenient method of providing an ample supply of properly chilled glasses. While any type of chilled containers are within the scope of this invention, the subject invention will be descried in terms of beer glasses for convenience.
In summary, for bartending, in order to avoid batch chilling of beer glasses and the like in which the last glasses put into a refrigerator are the first pulled out and are thus not properly chilled, a last in, last out glass chilling system provides a supply of properly chilled beer glasses, even when newly washed warm glasses are to be chilled. In one embodiment, the last in, last out glass chilling system includes a series of trays on a conveyor in the cabinet with each tray loaded with glasses. The conveyor moves the trays upwardly in the chill cabinet, with the chilling occurring during the time that the tray of glasses moves from a bottom position to a top position. This assures that, unlike batch chilling, properly chilled glasses are always available.
In one embodiment, a tray of glasses is in inserted at the base of the chill cabinet, with the conveyor being motorized to move the trays within the chill cabinet in an upward direction. Topmost tray is presented at an upper aperture in the chill cabinet, with the chilled glasses being extractable from this upper aperture. In a preferred embodiment, the trays are slanted downwardly such that glasses on the trays move by gravity towards this upper aperture. As glasses are removed from the tray, other glasses slide into place.
In order to prevent the glasses from crashing into each other, the glasses are supported by rollers carried by the tray, with the rollers being braked after a glass has been removed by the bartender. The braking may be effectuated by electro-optical means which brakes the rollers, in one embodiment, by an electrometric material moved into engagement with the rollers. In a further embodiment, the glasses are arranged in rows across the rollers, with the glasses in adjacent rows being separated by a barrier, and with each set of rollers associated with a row being independently rotatable.